That’s as plainly as I can say it. I wrote a series of tweets attempting (and failing) to satirize the setup of a book that I feel is harmful to readers and instead wrote something that was itself extremely harmful. There is simply no excuse for it. I fucked up and I own that. I know it’s only the result that matters, but please know that causing harm was not my intent and that I deeply regret causing anyone harm and am sorry. Based on the comments I received, I am examining the many ways in which my tweets were harmful to many different groups so that I can learn from this and not cause harm in the future.

I am also sorry and regret my initial responses to those who attempted to bring it to my attention. I misunderstood your criticisms. I failed to listen, and in doing so dismissed your concerns. At the very first mention, I should have stopped, listened, and acted appropriately. I did not do that, and I am truly sorry for adding additional insult to the injury already caused by my initial fuck up. I appreciate and am grateful to those who took the time to point out my mistakes both in my initial thread and in my responses.

It is especially humiliating to have caused harm to others while attempting to point out how a specific book might cause harm, and I would love nothing more than to move on. But doing so would compound the problem. Whatever shame I feel is wholly irrelevant compared to the injury I caused with my negligent words. Those who called me out where right to do so, and I am grateful to them for doing so. I should never have posted it in the first place. Doing so showed a clear lack of understanding of many issues both inside and outside of my community that I must and will work to educate myself on.

I would add so that there is no speculation or confusion, that I did absolutely choose to block one of the people who criticized me. It was not however due to their criticism. The user made it clear after the initial interaction that they did not want to hear from me or to have me anywhere near their space, but then proceeded to take screenshots of my timeline in order to ridicule me. I respect criticism and will not silence it. I do, however, have the right to protect myself from personal attacks. It is for that reason that I blocked them.

In the short term, I believe that this fuck up of mine has proven that I have many enormous blind spots and that I need to spend less time talking and more time listening and elevating the voices of other people. In the long term, I need to continue to educate myself, be more thoughtful of others when I speak, listen carefully when criticized, and not allow my personal feelings to take precedence over the harm I cause to others.

I understand that neither apologies nor words mean anything unless backed up by meaningful action, and so I will work to ensure that my future actions prove me to be better than the person who wrote that thread.

I hated Thirteen Reasons Why the first time I read it. So, of course, a couple of years later, I read it again. It’s just how I am. When I really have a problem with something, I tend to examine it to understand why. My hatelationship with the works of Ernest Hemingway is a great example of my tendency to do this. So when Thirteen Reasons Why was adapted by Netflix into a 13 episode series, I decided to give it a try to see if the show could rectify the issues I’d had with the book. I got through most of one episode and shut it down. But then, because I’m a glutton for punishment, I kept watching, determined to watch all the way to the end.

And now I’m going to share my thoughts, mostly because I want them out of my head, and mostly about the show. The thing is, I don’t really want to have a discussion about it. So if you disagree, that’s great. These are just my thoughts, and you’re free to do with them as you will. I understand that this is a much beloved story and that many people find great value in it, and I’m not trying to tell those people that they’re wrong or that they shouldn’t like it. We all bring our own experiences to the stories we take in, and that means that we won’t all walk away feeling the same way about something. And this is simply how I feel about this particular story. Do with that what you will.

So I’m going to spoil the events of the show. If you’re not interested in spoilers, skip this “review” until you’ve watched it (or not watched it…whatever). Also, TW for suicide, self-harm, sexual assault, and rape.

Before I get into the show, I want to briefly mention some of the things I found so troubling about the book. The first is that, to someone who is depressed or suicidal, the story of Hannah getting the opportunity to speak from beyond the grave and “teach” the people who have hurt her a lesson could read like a revenge fantasy. I have intimate knowledge of suicidal thoughts and attempted suicide. I speak from direct experience (though I will say that experiences differ, so my experience is not necessarily the same as someone else’s). When I was at my lowest, I remember distinctly thinking that everyone I thought had failed me would feel so sorry when I was gone. That they would wish they’d been there for me when I was alive. Hannah’s story is a fantasy that fulfills those dark thoughts, and I believe that in the wrong hands the book could read like a manual rather than a warning.

Additionally, I also really disliked that the story centered Clay in Hannah’s story. Everything became about him. How he felt. How he reacted. Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The story of someone reacting to the suicide of another can be a valuable story, but Thirteen Reasons Why was clearly about Hannah, but it still centered Clay. It was also intensely emotionally manipulative and, I felt, treated suicide like something other people could cause rather than what it truly is.

Did the show improve upon these flaws? In short? No. In fact, I believe it actually made them worse. There were some things I do believe it did well, so I’m going to break it down those first.

WHAT IT GOT RIGHT:

Hannah’s Parents — By introducing a subplot that revolved around Hannah’s parents suing the school and exposing the bullying present in the school, I believe the show did a decent job creating a fuller picture of the range of emotions those left behind after someone commits suicide would go through.

Tony — Tony’s final acceptance that he had done the wrong thing by withholding the tapes from Hannah’s parents and giving them the closure they needed was much appreciated. I don’t recall that the book delved into the moral implications of Tony keeping Hannah’s secrets, and I was glad that the show dealt with it. Also, it was nice that he was gay.

Jessica — Near the end, when Clay is trying to decide whether to release the tapes to a wider audience, I appreciated that he first asked Jessica’s permission. Her rape was detailed on the tapes, and I appreciated that the show gave what she wanted consideration. It wasn’t handled perfectly, but it was more than many shows would have done.

Other — I also believe that the show did a great job exposing the ways in which we treat each other and the effects that can have. It’s one of the reasons I believe so many people find this a powerful story. Showing how the words we say (or don’t say) and how even the smallest actions can have a ripple effect is a story worth telling, and I feel that the show did this well. Unfortunately, the overarching story of Hannah’s suicide is also what makes it an inappropriate story to tell in this instance. But we’ll get to that.

WHAT IT GOT WRONG

Almost everything else. It, in my opinion, romanticizes suicide to a disturbing degree. We’re meant to learn a very valuable lesson from Hannah’s suicide, which promotes the message that Hannah’s suicide had meaning. And that’s fucked up. It goes back to the problem I had with the book, which is that someone who is depressed or suicidal could watch this show and see, not a cautionary tale, but a roadmap. And I think that’s dangerous and irresponsible.

THE PARENTS — All of them. Seriously. Clay gets a head injury, suspended from school, beat up, he stays out all night, caught with weed, he comes home drunk and pukes on the table, all of this after a classmate commits suicide, and they do NOTHING. Seriously, fuck all of the parents on this show except for Hannah’s.

CLAY — My initial problems with the book regarding Clay become even more glaring in this show. The story becomes his story instead of Hannah’s. And let me be clear here: I think many of the issues with this story could have been resolved if Hannah’s tapes had not been part of the story. If the story had been about Clay searching for the reasons Hannah killed herself and uncovering all of the things that had happened to her, then Clay would have been centered in his own story. But the tapes make the story Hannah’s, and Clay becomes and remains the focus, which is messed up.

Furthermore, as Clay grows angry and begins to decide to take revenge for the things done to Hannah, the show loses its own moral superiority. Specifically, when Clay takes a naked picture of Tyler, Hannah’s stalker, and sends it out to the entire school and there are zero repercussions, it sends a massively fucked up message and immediately undermines whatever credibility Clay has. It makes him just as bad as the others on the tapes.

SKYE — The show really fucked up with this. There’s a specific scene in episode 11 where Clay learns that Skye has been cutting herself. We see numerous self-inflicted injuries on her wrists. When he asks her about them, she says, “It’s what you do instead of killing yourself. Suicide is for the weak.” WHAT THE FUCK? No. There are two major problems with this. 1) It’s a reductionist explanation of self-harm that disregards the very real danger of self-harm. 2) Despite believing that Hannah could have been saved if only someone had reached out to her and gotten her help, Clay NEVER seeks help for Skye. Yes, at the end of the show, he befriends her, but at that point in the show, he should have immediately ratted her out to his parents, her parents, the school counselor. Someone. Anyone. That he doesn’t shows a clear lack of understanding on the part of the show’s writers of the dangers of self-harm and suicide, and they should be fucking ashamed of not addressing it.

Alex — His attempted suicide at the end of the series was a gratuitous addition that I found disgusting. It once again centers a boy in Hannah’s story, and then it doesn’t even deal with it. It was unnecessary and wrong.

Tyler — The “hint” that he was going to shoot up his school was another show addition meant to tease a potential second season, but it was in really poor taste.

Other Adults — Seriously, all the school administrators should have been fired. Does this town not have a single therapist nearby?

Hannah — I’m not sure what the show’s writers/directors were thinking, but the graphic depiction of Hannah’s suicide was fucking sick. I don’t know if they were attempting to show the brutality and horror of it, but there is not a single teen I would ever suggest allowing to watch that. Hell, there’s not a single adult I’d ever suggest watch it. There was a grossly romanticized gaze to it that was beyond disturbing, and I’m horrified that it was allowed to be part of the show. Seriously, fuck whoever thought filming that was a good idea. And that’s not hyperbole. They literally show her slitting her wrists and dying.

Furthermore, with regards to Hannah, the show did a piss poor job of actually tracking Hannah’s descent. Yes, it gave us “13 reasons why” Hannah believed her life wasn’t worth living, but the the actual narrative did a shitty job of actually showing her depression and emotional journey. It did a far better job depicting the emotional spirals of every other character (especially Jessica), but tanked it when it came to the person the story was actually about. It’s like they read a pamphlet about suicide and figured they knew all they needed to know. It lost all nuances when it came to depicting Hannah’s emotional state.

General — Where the show majorly failed (and this is, I feel, a failure of the story the show is based on) is that it attempts to reduce the complexity of someone who’s committed suicide into reasons. It attempts to place blame on thirteen individuals. And while I understand the message is that we should all be more kind to each other, it’s a shitty representation of depression and someone who is suicidal. Hannah didn’t need Clay to love her more, she needed professional help.

The night I attempted suicide, I was living on campus at college. I went to a guy’s dorm and we fooled around and it was shitty and for a long time after, I blamed him. We barely knew each other, but I thought if he’d been into me and if things had gone better, I might not have attempted to kill myself. But the truth was that even if things had gone well, I probably still would have attempted it at some point. Maybe not that night, but eventually. It wasn’t that guy’s fault. It wasn’t my fault. It was my brain. It was a complex set of emotional and mental circumstances that no single person could have “saved” me from. And that’s what the show (and book) completely get wrong. And I think it’s dangerous. If someone is hurting and in pain and depressed and suicidal, they don’t just need you to love them more, they need professional help. And that’s a lesson everyone on the show fails to learn, as evidenced by Clay not telling anyone about Skye’s self-harm.

Tattoos — Does everyone in this town go to the same tattoo artist? Seriously, every kid has multiple huge tattoos. What the hell was up with that? And why is every show about teens allergic to hiring actual teens to play the parts? Those high school “kids” all looked 30.

FINAL THOUGHTS

There’s a good message about treating each other with kindness buried in this show. Exploring the lives of the people who intersected with Hannah allows for the opportunity to see how our actions affect each other. And if the show had focused on that and dumped Hannah’s tapes, the message would have come through stronger. But when seen through the lens of someone who has committed suicide who is forcing people to face their own ugliness, it becomes exploitative and gross. It turns a girl’s suicide into revenge porn and downplays the seriousness of the decision she made to take her own life.

We need more books and shows that deal with mental illness, but this shouldn’t be one of them. It’s grotesque and exploits suicide in a way that I feel is both callous and dangerous.

And that’s all I’ve got. Again, I understand that everyone will take their own message from this based on their personal experiences, but I can’t recommend it. And if you’re a parent of a teen who’s watching the show, I’d beg you to watch it yourself or watch it with them.

On February 19, Lionel Shriver wrote an opinion piece in The Guardian regarding the rise in the use of sensitivity readers. What follows is both my analysis and rebuttal.

Here is my direct link to the article. I’ll quote specific passages, but my intent is to go through it paragraph by paragraph, and since I can’t simply copy and paste the entire thing in here, you can use the link to refer to it.

Paragraph 1 – In which Lionel Shriver explains the writer/editor relationship to us.

Shriver, in her opening salvo, posits that it is the editor’s job to guide the writer, to “ensure that the author’s intentions are fully realised.” In this, she is both correct and incorrect. A good editor will do just as Shriver has said, but will also make sure that the writer’s intentions are worthy of being realized. A good editor can and will help guide an author who has gone off course, or point out a direction that the author may not have seen previously. A good editor doesn’t simply guide an author to their destination, a good editor questions whether that destination is the best destination, and guides the author appropriately.

Shriver then goes on to say that she’s gone against her editor’s advice numerous times, often without detriment. Which on the surface seems rational. No author working ever agrees with their editor all the time. But Shriver’s inclusion of this at the end of the first paragraph is a set up. She’s pushing the idea that she can disagree with her editor and that there are no repercussions. Which is false. A writer can certainly disagree with their editor. And an editor can choose not to push the issue. But the editor and publisher also have the right to choose not to publish the work should the author refuse edits. I’m not sure it happens often, but it does happen. A writer can refuse to make edits and can pull their work from the publisher, and a publisher can likewise cancel a contract should an author be inflexible about making edits. The more famous an author, the more likely that they can get away with it, but it’s not a consequence-free game.

Paragraph 2 – In which Lionel Shriver intentionally misrepresents the role of a sensitivity reader.

Shriver delivers the result of her paragraph 1 setup by saying, “It’s not clear that authors are equally free to ignore the censoriousness of ‘sensitivity readers’…” See what she did there? She started by telling us that she (and, by extension, other writers) could ignore their editors without repercussion, and then posits that the same lack of consequences could not be said of ignoring a sensitivity reader. Which is patently untrue. A writer who employs their own sensitivity reader, paying for it out of their own pocket, is under no obligation to take any of the advice given to them. And should a publisher choose to employ a sensitivity reader on the writer’s behalf, the same circumstances as apply to the editor/writer relationship I wrote about above.

I find it most egregious that Shriver chose to put quotation marks around marginalized groups in her definition of what a sensitivity reader does as if she’s unsure whether such groups even exist. I can assure Shriver that we do, in fact, exist. We are not “marginalized.” We are marginalized. She then goes on to talk about how sensitivity readers are employed before a book is acquired as if this is somehow a grave sin. Next, she’ll be advocating that we should avoid editing or fact-checking a book until after it’s published because an author’s words should go right to the people untouched by anyone.

Shriver mentions that while sensitivity readers are most often employed by those seeking publication in children’s or YA publishing, “lately mainstream media have consistently drifted toward pandering to the thin-skinned.” And she laments that “grownup fiction” may be the next target.

Let’s unpack that, shall we? First of all, there’s a reason we don’t routinely call members of the gay community “faggots” anymore. It’s not because we’re thin-skinned. It’s because it’s fucking insulting, and we’ve earned the right to be treated with respect and dignity, and most civilized members of our society have recognized that. Calling someone who doesn’t want to be denigrated “thin-skinned” proves simply that Shriver believes she is better than others and doesn’t have to abide by the rules of polite society. That said, as a writer, I also understand that words, even words we find insulting, have their place in literature. I have used the word “fag” in my own work because it felt necessary. At the same time, I also understand that doing so means accepting criticism from those who disagree with me. But that’s something Shriver seems unable and unwilling to do. She seems to believe that she (and other authors) live in a world beyond criticism. That because we create art, we should be exempt from being criticized for the art we create. She is wrong. I’ll get into why later.

Paragraphs 3 and 4 – In which Shriver attempts to deflect criticism of her own work.

Not much to be said here. These weak paragraphs are simply Shriver’s attempt to position her detractors as mealy-mouthed and weak, and herself as a rebel who takes on “polarising issues” and is thus “apt to step on a few toes.” But what she fails to realize here is that it is quite possible to be polarizing without being a total jackass. Ann Leckie’s brilliant Imperial Radch trilogy definitely ruffled some feathers by exploring issues of gender and race and rampant nationalism while also being sensitive to the very issues she was exploring.

Paragraph 5 – In which Shriver bemoans the chilling effect sensitivity has on the creative process.

“At the keyboard, unrelenting anguish about hurting other people’s feelings inhibits spontaneity and constipates creativity.” Shriver spends this entire paragraph discussing how thinking about the effect a writer’s work might have on others leads to a lack of creativity, a stifling of the process and writers giving up just to avoid the humiliation of having their hands slapped if they get anything ‘wrong.'” While I won’t deny that this is the message writers like Shriver seem to take from the discourse regarding sensitivity, it makes so many flatly wrong assumptions that it boggles my mind.

When I was working on At the Edge of the Universe, my agent called me out for writing a character in a way that was racist. Tommy and his mother, both of whom are black, spoke in a southern style. I’d developed an entire backstory for them, where they’d come from, why they spoke that way. I’d developed the manner of speech based on my own family. They sounded like my family did. But my agent pointed out that as Tommy and his mother are the only major black characters in the book, it didn’t read like I was writing southern-style speech, but rather like I was making a bad attempt to write the way I thought black people spoke. She knew that wasn’t my intention. I knew that wasn’t my intention. But a reader wouldn’t. And I saw the harm that could come from not making changes. Not to me. But to the readers I was attempting to connect to.

Now, in that situation, I could have done a lot of things. I could have chosen to leave it and hope that readers understood my intention. I could have changed Tommy and his mother, made them white and kept the southern slang. Ultimately I chose to rewrite Tommy’s and his mother’s dialogue. And rather than stifling my creativity, doing so forced me to be more creative. To find better ways to incorporate the backstory I’d created for Tommy and his mother. Ways that allowed me to show readers where they’d come from without being a racist shithead.

The most telling part of what Shriver says here is the fear of being called a racist (or homophobic or ableist) rather than fear of actually being a fucking racist. She doesn’t care if what she writes actually hurts people, she only cares about not being called out for it. But no one is immune to criticism. No one should be immune to criticism. I used to have this idea that being gay meant I couldn’t possibly be racist or misogynistic or ableist. I imagined that being gay meant I understood where members of other marginalized communities were coming from. I was mistaken. Majorly mistaken. And knowing I was mistaken doesn’t mean I haven’t or won’t screw up in the future. But I’m not concerned with being called racist or sexist or misogynistic. I’m concerned with trying not to be those things. Not to write them. And when I do those things—and I will—my goal won’t be damage control. It won’t be to rail against those who call me out on my bullshit and to make specious claims that being called out stifles my creativity. It will be to shut up, listen, and learn so that I can try not to make the same mistakes again.

Paragraph 6 – In which Shriver mocks those with eczema.

Again, Shriver fails to recognize the point. She sees any criticism of her as an assault on her “rights” to write whatever she wants, no matter how harmful. She doesn’t care about the subjects she writes about, only about herself. I mean, why should those suffering from terminal illnesses actually get to have a say in the literature written about them? The hubris Shriver exhibits shows a severe lack of empathy regarding people in general. If you, a writer, are not willing to truly listen to and understand the very people you’re writing about, you have no fucking business writing about them. Period.

Paragraph 7 and 8 – In which Shriver attempts to undermine the authority of a sensitivity reader first by questioning their moral authority then by insinuating they’re just in it for the cash.

Shriver says, “As a woman, I’d be uneasy about being given the power to determine what is insulting to women in general.” And, frankly, I’d be uneasy allowing Shriver to determine what is insulting to anyone ever. But her argument here is an attempt to ask the question, “What gives you the right to determine what’s offensive?” What she fails to address is that no single person is the arbiter of what is offensive. Whereas there are books about gay characters I find horribly insensitive, other gay men don’t find them so. Does that mean she has a point? Yes and no. Yes, because what is offensive to one member of a marginalized group may not be offensive to another. But no because any writer who seeks out one opinion and calls it a day is a moron. If you’re a straight writer writing about gay teens and you ask only one gay person to read it, you’re doing yourself and your readers a disservice. You don’t just seek out one person’s opinion. Seek many. Do your fucking homework! Doctoral candidates don’t base their entire thesis on one source, so why should you base your character on only one? Get real!

But Shriver wants it to seem like this is how it is. That one voice from one marginalized group has the ability to shut down a book. Ask any black woman if that’s true and see how fast she laughs in your face. Shitty books with shitty representation get published all the time. They get called out and criticized, and then still go on to sell a million copies. Shriver wants to frame the argument as Us versus Them, but she’s the one with the privilege. She’s the one publishing books. She’s the one making money. You think there are any sensitivity readers out there getting rich off this? Shriver is sitting on her throne criticizing people who are trying to help make books better while she gets to keep on publishing her shitty work.

Paragraph 9 and 10 – In which Shriver attempts to link sensitivity reading to full-on censorship.

“There’s a thin line between combing through manuscripts for anything potentially objectionable to particular subgroups and overt political censorship.” Shriver’s attempt here is to make the point that the real world is messy. People are horrible and say rude things and are racist. She’s not wrong. People are horrible. They do horrible things. They say horrible things. But she’s also attempting to subvert the issue with pretty weak straw man argument.

Most people, I would assume, understand that the word “fag” isn’t okay to use. Yet there are people who still use it. They use it as a joke or as an insult. That’s life. I’ve been called a fag. I’ve been called a fag by people looking to insult me or antagonize me. I’ve been called a fag by friends who thought it was okay to use because they see themselves as allies and therefore believe I understand they don’t mean anything by it. But, generally, I think we can agree it’s not okay to use. Does that mean we can’t use it in a book? Of course not, despite what Shriver is trying to suggest.

Imagine I wrote the following exchange:

“Did you do your homework?” I asked.
John shook his head. “No.”
“Mrs. Smith is going to be pissed.”
John rolled his eyes. “Why do you care? You’re such a fag.”

A sensitivity reader would probably point to that and suggest using a different word. Shriver would probably rail against the suggestion, claiming people use words like that in real life and she has every right to do the same. But the question she should be asking is why she chose that word? Why is it necessary? What impact might it have on a gay teen reading it? A writer who asks those questions might choose to change the word. Does it alter the exchange if John calls the narrator an asshole or a suck up instead? It could, if the author is trying to imply that John is homophobic. So how could a writer go about using such a slur in a way that’s not harmful? Well, they’d have to be creative (something Shriver seems to think sensitivity makes impossible). They could do something like this:

“Did you do your homework?” I asked.
John shook his head. “No.”
“Mrs. Smith is going to be pissed.”
John rolled his eyes. “Why do you care? You’re such a fag.”
David punched John in the shoulder. “Dude, not cool.”

Oh look! One line. One line to show that John is an asshole for calling the narrator a fag and that it’s not okay. It’s creativity at work, folks! Shriver says, “Fiction won’t help younger readers to make sense of their real lives, if in books…transsexuals never regret transitioning.” I’m not even going to pretend Shriver didn’t know the use of “transsexual” in this context is offensive. She knows. Just like she knows that the problem isn’t with writers writing about transgender individuals who might regret transitioning, but rather with how those same writers approach the topic. See, writers like Shriver just want to write what they want without having to do their homework. All these arguments she’s making are just excuses to keep writing poorly-researched, stereotypical, two-dimensional characters without having to face the consequences of doing so.

I don’t write coming-out stories because I’ve read so many of them and they’re mostly terrible. They’re cliche. They feature the same tired tropes. Boy lusts after hot straight guy. Boy tells girl best friend he’s gay. She probably has a thing for him. Boy’s parents find out. Boy gets kicked out of house. Sympathetic adult takes him in. Hot straight boy is actually gay. You know how many times I’ve seen this tired old narrative? Too fucking many times. And it’s almost always straight writers writing them because they’ve watched a couple of movies and they have a gay best friend or nephew or uncle. But does that mean no one should be able to write coming-out stories? No. Does that mean I think straight writers can’t write coming-out narratives? Nope. I think Becky Albertalli wrote a wonderful coming-out narrative with Simon Versus the Homo Sapiens Agenda. You know what the difference was? She did her damn homework. And it shows in her book.

Then Shriver goes on to list books and shows that wouldn’t have been made now. Of course, I don’t think she’s necessarily wrong there. I’ve traveled a lot in the last year. In nearly every hotel I could always find either Friends or Modern Family playing. You know what I noticed about watching Friends now? Chandler, who was supposed to be the comic relief, is a fucking creep. He’s a full on sexist creep. If they were making Friends now, he would have probably been gay (like it was originally intended). Because, guess what?, times change. We learn, we grow. That’s not censorship, it’s wisdom. We’ve learned that, here in the United States, the greatest terrorism threat we face isn’t from Muslims, but from fundamentalist Christian white men. So while Shriver is correct that some of those books wouldn’t have been published or shows created (or they would have been done differently), that’s not a bad thing. It’s called progress. And the only people railing against that are the people who want to keep living in their world where it’s okay to be a shitty person without consequences.

So now Shriver has gotten to the point where sensitivity is stifling the rights of writers to publish shitty books. Boo-fucking hoo, Shriver. She mentions the case of Kiera Drake, who’s book The Continent was postponed because it featured racially offensive stereotypes. In Shriver’s world, it’s a bad thing that a publisher recognizes a racially offensive book and pulls it to try to make it better. She says, “Poor Keira is probably sweating it out in some Manhattan gulag.” When the truth is that Drake’s sales, when the book releases, probably won’t suffer. In fact, the controversy will likely help her sales in the long run. The Continent likely would have been just another fantasy on a shelf crowded with them and faded into obscurity. But now people are talking about it. They know the name. Those who might have passed it by will now probably buy it just to see how bad it really is. I’m sure Drake will be suffering all the way to the bank. My sincere hope is that Drake, unlike Shriver, makes a sincere effort to listen and understand why her book was problematic, and to make positive changes to The Continent and any future books. Time will tell.

Paragraph 12 – In which Shriver makes a promise I hope to god she keeps.

Not much here. Just Shriver equating being offensive to being daring. Which is bullshit. One can be daring without being offensive. I think what Shriver lacks is the creativity to see how to do that.

To sum up, Shriver’s entire argument rests on the notion that paying attention to what we write, that being sensitive to the cultures and groups we write about, stifles creativity. She’s wrong. Because if all you can do is fall back on old stereotypes and tropes when you’re writing, it’s not sensitivity that’s stifling your creativity, but a lack of it.

Shriver ends her essay with this choice line, “The day my novels are sent to a sensitivity reader is the day I quit.” To which I say: Dear God, someone make that happen ASAP. That day can’t come fast enough.

A while back, an author on Twitter (whose name, of course, I can’t find now, but if you know it, please let me know it was Heidi Heilig! Thank you, Adam for figuring it out. And thank you to Heidi for doing it in the first place!) added trigger warnings for her books to her website. I thought it was a great idea and have been meaning to follow suit. I think it’s important that people who are sensitive to certain topics know what they’re getting into when they pick up a book. I’m especially sensitive to books where self-harm is depicted because of my own experiences with cutting when I was younger. While depictions of cutting in a book won’t necessarily keep me from reading it, knowing it’s in there helps me mentally prepare for it so that it doesn’t catch me unaware.

I added trigger warnings for At the Edge of the Universe, Violent Ends, We Are the Ants, and The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley. I’ll need to go back are reread my first two books to see if there are any issues that need to be addressed in them, but they didn’t deal with the topics my later books have focused on. If I have missed something in the warnings, please don’t hesitate to let me know and I’ll be more than happy to add them. I don’t want any reader caught unaware by a sensitive issue they weren’t expecting that might be triggering for them.

The release day for my sixth book, At the Edge of the Universe, was on Tuesday. Six. In my wildest dreams, I rarely thought I’d publish one book, and now my sixth is out there in the world. It’s so wild. And even more wild is that I’ve been out in LA and Seattle and San Francisco meeting readers and book sellers to support it, all of whom have been so generous with their time and gracious to a nobody like me. It’s honestly been such an amazing experience.

The early trade reviews for AtEotU have just been so positive that my Grinchy heart has grown to nearly exploding. Here’s a quick roundup.

Kirkus gave it a starred review and called it “An earthy, existential coming-of-age gem.”

SLJ said, “Readers will feel Ozzie’s nearly radiant pain, but Universe isn’t singularly focused. All of the characters are neatly fleshed out and have their own personal anguish: Lua deals with being gender-fluid in a small town; Dustin, whose father loses the family fortune, has to confront a future where his dreams cannot be attained; and Ozzie’s trials serve as a lens through which readers can examine the scope of human experience in this (shrinking) universe.”

From Booklist’s review: “Wrenching and thought provoking, Hutchinson has penned another winner.”

Publisher’s Weekly also gave it a star and said, “Ozzie’s friends remind him that the world doesn’t revolve around him, but Hutchinson playfully disagrees, turning the literal shrinking of the universe into a smart metaphor for Ozzie’s introversion and alienation.”

BCCB said, “Hutchinson ably keeps the tone sardonic and wry, allowing for characters to experience devastation with a clear perspective that all will be survived, and life still holds mysteries and joys.”

And Shelf Awareness gave AtEotU its third star saying, “Hutchinson’s authentic characters, exploring their gender and sexuality with equal parts confusion and confidence, will resonate with many teens who no longer see their identity as binary or unchanging. Ozzie’s story may be fantastical, but its emotional honesty renders the whole complicated story believable, and readers will flock to its central truths.”

Honestly, I couldn’t have asked for better reviews. Every time I put something out into the world, I worry. I worry it’s not good enough. I worry I’m not good enough. I worry readers won’t see the same things I do in the story. And, of course, that’s all part of making art. We all have our own experiences and view art through the lens of those experiences. Someone who’s never experienced depression might find reading about it tedious because their experiences differ from someone who’s lived with it their whole life. So it’s incredibly gratifying to know Ozzie’s story is resonating with readers.

At A Great Good Place for Books last night, Alex Green, who moderated two panels I was on at the Bay Area Book Festival last year, came to talk (because he’s awesome and you should check him out and I can’t thank him enough for being there and saving me from my own awkwardness) and we discussed how AtEotU relates to the current issues we’re dealing with in regards to truth and what constitutes truth and how even objective reality can be altered and shaped by our own personal truths. And I got to talk to a brilliant teen named Rowen, who wants to be a surgeon or an architect or a cosmological scientist or an artist (or all of them at the same time!), about quantum physics and the nature of reality and whether we’re living in a simulated world or not. I also got to spread my orange juice theory of the nature of truth and reality.

Sometimes I hear people dismiss YA lit as somehow inferior to adult lit. They claim that it’s watered down and not intelligent. But I disagree. I love ideas. I love filling books with ideas on everything from the quality and value of Hemingway’s writing to discussions on the nature of reality and philosophical musings of truth. I bring up the Allegory of the Cave from Plato’s Republic and there are no blank stares. Teen readers are fucking brilliant. They’re totally willing to dive into the mud and tear apart ideas with me. And that’s what I hoped At the Edge of the Universe would be. A book of ideas. Ideas and characters and emotions that people would talk about. I want people to read it and walk away with the desire to challenge their own world. I want them to explore their own ideas of truth and reality and gender and mental illness, and to challenge my ideas as well. There’s nothing more gratifying than having a reader challenge something I’ve written and show me a new way to think about and see the world.

I’m rambling. It’s a rambling kind of day. This whole tour has been such an amazing experience that I can hardly contain myself. But I don’t want to ramble too much, so I’ll cut it short here. If you haven’t picked up At the Edge of the Universe, I hope you will. If you have and you’ve read it, I hope you’ll talk, not just about the book, but about the ideas in it. I hope you’ll look around your own world and challenge what you see. Because no matter how small the universe may seem sometimes, ideas are infinite and you are amazing.

I have a lot of thoughts right now. Many of them contain a lot of profanity. I’ve spent the last two days angry and I’m probably going to spend many more angry. I’m not even entirely sure who I’m angry at yet. What I do know is that, at some point, I need to turn my anger to something productive. I need to fight for the changes I want to see in the world.

To that end, I’m offering free visits to school Gay/Straight Alliances (or other queer school organizations) in South Florida area, as well as to gay youth centers or library programs aimed at serving queer youth. That includes Palm Beach County, Broward County, Martin County, St. Lucie County, and Miami-Dade County.

I do work a job during the day so I’ll have to plan well in advance, but I will fit in as many visits as I possibly can for any queer youth program that’s interested and within driving distance.

Interested? Email me at shaun@shaundavidhutchinson.com and let’s make it happen. This is how I fight.

This has been quite a year—and there are still two months left! I’ve been kind of a failure as an author this year. My email has gotten completely away from me to the point that I get anxiety every time I open it. If you’ve written me in the past couple of months, I apologize for not getting back sooner. I promise that before the year ends, I will answer each and every email you’ve sent me, and I hope you’ll forgive my slackerness.

I just wanted to share a couple of cool things and update you all on what’s going on. It’s difficult to believe We Are the Ants came out almost a year ago! And now it’s in the first round of Goodreads Reader’s Choice Awards in the YA Fantasy/Sci-Fi category. I’d be honored if you voted for it (though it’s up against some AMAZING books, so I couldn’t blame you if you voted for one of those.)

A couple of weeks ago, I had the honor of presenting the Sunday Keynote at SLJ’s 2016 Leadership Summit where I spoke about the importance of books as bridges. The best part of it was that after, I got to sign copies of We Are the Ants for attendees (mostly librarians and teachers), all of whom are awesome. I was amazed by the number who got a book and told me they knew exactly the kid who needed to read it. Teachers and librarians are so vitally important to teen readers. I don’t think I can stress that enough. Anyway, the speech is embedded below if you want to give it a watch. It’s long, but I’m really proud of it.

There’s still lots of stuff coming up that I’m beyond excited about.

12/13/16 The paperback of Violent Ends comes out.

2/7/17 My next book, At the Edge of the Universe is released.

4/4/17 The paperback of We Are the Ants is out.

I’ll be updating the site soon with where I’ll be in the coming year, so keep an eye out for that.

And in the meantime, just wanted to thank everyone who’s supported me and my books and let you all know how much I appreciate you. Keep marching on!

I should be writing. It’s 6am in Austin and I should be working on revisions, but I can’t stop thinking about something I read about on Twitter yesterday.

So I’m going to get real about depression and suicide. These are tough issues to talk about, so I’ll understand if you’re not able to read this.

Yesterday I saw that a respected YA author made an offhand suicide joke on Twitter that was related to one of his books. It wasn’t funny. Jokes about teen suicide are never funny. When I saw what had been posted I thought about myself at 19. I thought about who I was and how my thought processes worked back then. If I’d seen that post when I was 19 I would have felt as if someone with a voice louder and more important than mine was telling me that my life and my death were fodder for an internet laugh. I would have felt like someone the community respected was saying my life was unimportant and that no one would care if I died.

Seeing a joke like that when I was 19 would have crushed me. If you’re an author (especially if you’re a YA author), if you have a platform from which to speak, you have to believe that people are listening. You have to understand that your platform amplifies your voice and that the people who are listening take in your words and assign an importance to them greater than that which you might assign yourself. You have to assume that someone is listening to anything and everything you say. You need to assume that there’s a kid out there who’s hurting and who’s hearing what you’re saying and taking it in. It doesn’t matter what your intentions are when you speak—whether it was a joke or not—you have to assume that someone is taking your words at face value. And when you make a joke about suicide or mental illness, you’re telling someone out there that the pain they’re feeling, the darkness and demons they’re struggling with, are unimportant. That they are unimportant. It doesn’t matter what you intended, only what you said and what they heard.

If I’d read an author’s works when I was 19 and looked up to them and looked to them for that sliver of hope I’d needed to latch onto, and then seen them make a joke of the thing I was struggling with, it could have been disastrous for me. And let’s not kid ourselves: those words still impact me. I attempted suicide at 19, but surviving didn’t mean the end of my struggles. I was devastated when author Ned Vizzini took his own life a few years ago. When I sold my first book, I looked up to him. I saw what he’d gone through in his own life and all the things he’d accomplished and I thought, “If he can do it—if he can battle his demons and succeed at the things I want to succeed at—then so can I.” And then when he took his life, I struggled to understand how someone who had all the things I wanted could have given in, and with what that meant for my own battles. Even though I’d never met him, I took his death very personally. I took it as a pronouncement about my own life and its worthiness. And even though I know it wasn’t, I couldn’t help looking at his circumstances and his choices and comparing them to my own. I struggled to understand that what he went through was not what I go through, and that his death was not a judgement about my life. And that was difficult because all I could see what was he put out there. I couldn’t see the intricacies of his personal struggles. I couldn’t see all that lay behind his public persona. I could only take what he put out there at face value.

Even recently, I’ve been battling feelings of worthlessness. The last couple of months have been exceptionally difficult for me and there have been many nights where I lay in bed and struggled to find just one thing to keep me anchored. “Depression isn’t a war you win. It’s a battle you fight every day.” And there have been moments recently where I was afraid I might not win that day’s battle. I don’t often talk about my day-to-day struggles with depression and suicidal thoughts because that’s not the message I want to put into the world. I want the people who see me to feel empowered and hopeful and brave. But maybe that wasn’t the right thing to do. Maybe it’s important to see my losses as well as my victories in order to understand that it’s okay to struggle, it’s okay to doubt, it’s okay to be low so long as you keep on fighting. Because the fight is real, and seeing someone with a voice louder than my own make a joke about it hurts. I’m not 19 anymore, but it still makes me feel like my own life and my own struggles are nothing more than someone else’s joke.

My pain is not a joke. Your pain is not a joke. No one’s pain is a fucking joke.

Before I went to bed last night, I posted a bunch of tweets about this and someone mentioned that being able to use humor about their own struggles is one of the things that’s helped them, so I want to address that too. I also use humor to help me. If you’ve read any of my books you know that I use humor to help lighten serious issues. I also use humor in my personal life as a coping mechanism. But there’s a difference between making self-deprecating jokes about myself when I’m with my family or friends and making them publicly. My family and friends are people who understand me and who understand the context of the jokes I make about myself. They understand that I’m uncomfortable talking about things and that I use humor to navigate difficult topics and situations. And when I use humor in books, I also give the humor context. When a character reacts to something like depression or a suicide attempt in an inappropriate way, I provide the context that shows it’s inappropriate. Context is key. If I made the comments that I can make with my family and friends on Twitter, people who viewed them would lack that context and wouldn’t understand what I was saying, and as a result my comments would come off as thoughtless and insensitive.

When I’m hanging out with my brother (who is also gay) and his husband and I make a joke about a gay person we see on TV, there’s years of context that we share that gives that joke meaning. Years of understanding between us about my own struggles coming to terms with what being a gay man means to me and years of context about my brother’s own struggles. My brother would understand the joke in a way that no one else could because our shared history provides the context. If I made the same joke in a public forum, that context wouldn’t exist and it would make me sound like an asshole. And I’ve similarly used humor about my own struggles with suicide around my family because the context exists for them to understand where that humor is coming from and what it means. They understand I’m not diminishing what I went through or the emotional trauma they experienced when I attempted suicide. But I would never, ever make those jokes publicly because that context simply doesn’t exist and my words would mean something totally different to a stranger than they do to my family.

And if I’m being honest, I would never make jokes like that around my mother because 19 years later, she’s still hurt by what I did. No amount of context would ever make my suicide attempt or what she went through funny to her. That I thought, even for a moment, that my life wasn’t worth living, is still an open wound for my mother and she would never find it funny.

So while I understand that humor can be a powerful tool in recovery, context matters. I can find humor in my own traumas, and I can maybe share that humor with people with whom I shared the trauma, but that humor, lacking context, simply doesn’t translate to something that would be funny to strangers. And we have a responsibility to understand that.

I don’t personally know the author who made the joke, so I’m not going to pass judgement on him. I don’t know what he struggles with in his own life or where the joke came from. What I can say is that the joke was not funny. It was insensitive, thoughtless, and I hope he considers the weight his words carry in the future. I hope he considers his audience when he posts things going forward. Because it doesn’t matter if 1000 people see the “joke” and laugh if there’s one person out there who sees it and it makes them feel like they don’t matter. Like their pain is meaningless and their life worthless. Their pain is real. Their life does matter.

The past 2 1/2 months have been challenging for me. Sometimes I look around and feel like an idiot because the things I’ve been dealing with are basically nothing compared to the things other people have gone and are going through. But emotions are complicated and things that might seem like nothing to other people can feel like the end of the world to us while we’re knee deep in the middle of them. My relationship of six years ended, and I’ve been coping by being all hermity and building giant Lego sets and eating my way through every chocolate ice cream in the grocery store. There were moments where I thought I wasn’t going to come out of it—trying to come to terms with what it means to be alone again—but this past weekend really helped me see the truth of things, and I feel for the first time in two months like everything’s going to be okay.

Friday I took off to go to the Decatur Book Festival. I met up with two amazing friends who mean the absolute world to me. Just getting to sit and talk to them for hours was everything. I got to surround myself with brilliant writers and editors and book people. I saw the most amazing panels—including one with Beth Revis, and another with Anica Rissi, Terra Elan McVoy, Kate Milford, and Jason Reynolds—and then shared the stage with Sandy Hall and Adam Silvera, where I spent the majority of my time cracking up because of how awesome and funny they both are. It was a truly amazing experience. I also managed to get tongue tied when I met Jacqueline Woodson, and got to have breakfast and great conversation with Jason Reynolds.

Oddly enough, the most interesting conversation I had in Decatur was with my cab driver on the way back to the airport last night. My driver was a man from Pakistan who had worked as an interpreter for the U.S. Army before coming to America. He couldn’t understand how and why so many Americans were and are willing to continue to funnel obscene amounts of money into our military when we have so many people here at home who can’t clothe and feed themselves and who go into crippling debt to pay for basic medical necessities. We talked about how it’s white people’s fear of losing our (and I say “our” because I am white and male and I do benefit from it) position of power in this country—a position we attained only through the subjugation of POC and women—that cause them to lose their minds and vote for someone as odious as Donald Trump. We talked about how Americans demonize Muslims while allowing fundamentalist Christians to dictate the same sort of oppressive ideologies we claim Muslims enforce. It was such a pleasure to talk to him and hear his views that I wished I could have just driven around and talked to him all day.

I came to a realization on this trip about how we should all surround ourselves with people who challenge us. People who challenge our beliefs, people who challenge us to think about the world and ourselves. Sometimes I get jealous when I see the successes of other writers. When I read their books and think, “Damn! I wish I’d written that!” But I was listening to Jason Reynolds read from his newest book, GHOST, and I sat there thinking that I shouldn’t be jealous of him, I should allow myself to be challenged by him and by all the other amazing writers out there who are better than me. I should make it my life’s goal to rise to that challenge and try to be better in my work, in my thoughts, and in my actions. It made me question who I want to be in the best possible ways.

Anyway, it was an amazing two days, and I really needed it to get out of my own headspace and finally start making my way out of the depression I’d sunk into and walk back out into the world. Like Henry said: Things are always happening, they’re just happening without us. I don’t want things to happen without me. I want to make them happen.

Speaking of making things happen…a couple of weeks ago we finally got to announce my next anthology! It’s tentatively called FERAL YOUTH, and it’s loosely based on The Canterbury Tales. It’s the story of ten teens at an at-risk youth camp who spend three days alone in the wilderness telling each other stories. It’s similar to Violent Ends in that it takes place in a shared world. I can’t tell you how excited I am about this anthology. But I’ll let the list of authors brave enough to take this journey with me speak for themselves:

Like, holy shit, right? Talk about people who inspire me. These are some of the most brilliant and inspiring writers I’ve ever met, and I’m beyond lucky to get to work with them. Feral Youth is scheduled to release Fall 2018.

My next book, At the Edge of the Universe is also approaching its release date pretty quickly. I got a couple of ARCs (and I’ll be randomly giving them out at my upcoming events, so if you’re there, you might get one!) and it’s up on Edelweiss, so people are officially reading it, which scares the crap out of me. At the Edge of the Universe is the story of a boy named Ozzie who realizes the universe is shrinking after his boyfriend Tommy vanishes from the world and from the memories of everyone who knew him. Throughout the story, Oz struggles to convince others the universe is actually shrinking while not giving up hope of finding Tommy. He also worries about losing the other people in his life. His best friend Lua—a gender fluid rockstar on the cusp of their own success; his brother, who is leaving for the army; his parents, who are in the midst of a divorce; his other best friend, Dustin, who’s soon to be leaving for college.

Though I didn’t exactly realize it until I was going through copyedits and was in the midst of my own breakup, but At the Edge of the Universe is, at its core, the story of relationships in various stages. New relationships, ending relationships, relationships that are evolving into something new. The way people come into our lives and change us. The way people can leave our lives but leave a piece of themselves behind, forever altering how we see the world. Sometimes I wonder whether I wrote this book or whether this book wrote me. Either way, I’m so proud of it and terrified for you to read it.

And hopefully soon I’ll be able to share some other cool news about something I’ve been working on, but I’ll have to save that for another post.

Finally, I’ve got a busy traveling schedule coming up, so if you’re going to be at any of these events, stop by and say hi!

November 7, 2000. I was sitting in a bar in Boston. The results of the presidential election had been rolling in all night. I hadn’t been particularly fired up by Al Gore—let’s be honest, the man was BORING—but he was dedicated to the environment and he’d served under Bill Clinton (whom I thought was a pig but still a good president). Plus, he had to be better than George W. Bush and his scary VP.

I didn’t vote in that election. I’ve never told anyone that. I was apathetic. Gore didn’t inspire me. I never thought Bush could win. I was at a bar instead.

Then the results began to roll in. I watched the battle play out on TV. It was a battle I had a personal stake in, but I’d stayed out of the fight. When the results from Florida were shown, I knew we were screwed. Gore had lost the election. The thing I never thought could happen had happened. In a way, it was kind of like Brexit. I, like many people, likely believed there was no real chance Gore could lose, so I’d withheld my vote and the thing that I thought couldn’t happen actually happened.

It’s not hyperbole to say that George W. Bush left our country in worse shape than when he took office. It could have been worse. It could have been so much worse.

And now we’re here again. Hillary Clinton—whom I did vote for…twice—has been nominated for the presidency against Donald Trump. And I hear people saying there’s no way he could ever become president. I hear people saying they’re going to withhold their vote for Clinton for many reasons (most of which I find ludicrous, but some of which I do understand) in order to show their displeasure at our nation’s two-party system.

I’m going to vote for Clinton. Yes, she’s made some poor decisions, but I respect her and like her and I think she’ll lead our country far, far better than Donald Trump. I’m going to vote for Clinton because I don’t want to be sitting in a bar on another election night watching something I thought could never happen happen. I’m voting for Clinton because our nation deserves better than a man who uses hate to get ahead.

If you’re going to vote for Trump because you honestly believe he’ll be a better leader, I respect your decision (though I thoroughly disagree and would love the opportunity to tell you why), but if you’re going to not vote for Clinton out of protest or because you think Trump can’t possibly win and your vote won’t matter, please rethink your decision. Your vote DOES matter, and that thing you think can’t possibly happen will happen if we let apathy win.